faces

If the U.S. Congress could be symbolized and encapsulated as a single human face, it would be the bland, smudgy, vaguely terrifying visage below. From artists Rebecca Lieberman and Matthew Skomarovsky, via…

I’m guessing this terrifying procedure is nonetheless cheaper than a lifetime on antidepressants. The Atlantic reports: South Korea has helped paved the way for double-eyelid surgeries, dimple injections, calf reductions and even double-jaw…

Majestic and mysterious Popocatepetl has been beset by UFO-related claims for several years. Now locals claim that a humanoid face has appeared on the volcanic mountain’s side, presumably a beacon for the…

The physical manifestation of what we all possess inside? Wikipedia on historical figure Edward Mordake, who allegedly had a second, “evil” face which would spasm, cry, and make horrid expressions: Edward Mordake…

Zurich, Switzerland-based Disney Research has unveiled its new method of creating eerily perfect copies of human faces for use on robots, pointing the way toward a world in which everyone has an android identical twin. The robot countenances are made of silicone, capable of portraying the full range of emotions, and most disturbingly, will be used for animatronic characters at theme parks:

We propose a complete process for designing, simulating, and fabricating synthetic skin for an animatronics character that mimics the face of a given subject and its expressions.

We use physics-based simulation to predict the behavior of a face when it is driven by the underlying robotic actuation. Next, we capture 3D facial expressions for a given target subject. We demonstrate this computational skin design by physically cloning a real human face onto an animatronics ﬁgure.

Not long from now, you’ll be able to pick the face you want to wear–perhaps purchasing several different options (Julia Roberts, Mickey Mouse, et cetera) for 99 cents apiece. For his Faces project, artist Arturo Castro developed a face substitution technique and let people try it out:

This is a technical demo for face substitution technique. The application works in real time. Most of the “magic” happens thanks to Jason Saragih’s c++ library for face tracking FaceTracker. The face tracking library returns a mesh that matches the contour of the eyes, nose, mouth and other facial features.

This could be a very important skill, pay attention kids! By John D. Sutter for CNN:

If you take Adam Harvey’s advice, here’s what you might wanna wear to a party this weekend: A funny hat, asymmetrical glasses, a tuft of hair that dangles off your nose bridge and, most likely, a black-and-white triangle taped to your cheekbone. Optional: Cubic makeup patterns all around your eyes.

All of these otherworldly fashion accessories – which could leave a person looking kind of like an opulent villain from “The Hunger Games” – have a singular goal: to stop your face from being detected by cameras and computers. Called CV Dazzle (short for “computer vision dazzle;” more on the name later), Harvey’s project is a provocative and largely theoretical response to the rise of surveillance cameras on street corners and face-detecting technology that’s been incorporated into social networking sites like Facebook and Flickr.

If you employ these techniques, Harvey, 30, hopes computers won’t even know…